Rensselaer Republican, Volume 13, Number 12, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 December 1880 — FARM AND GARDEN. [ARTICLE]

FARM AND GARDEN.

A< * ays give the soil the first meal. If it Is well fed with manure it will feed all else, plants, animals and men. The importation of thoroughbred horses, cattle and sheep from Europe to this country for the past year, exceeds that of any former year. The European demand for American food products is turning out greater than was expected, and the promise of the wheat market is encouraging, both to farmers and dealers. The poultry keeper who suoceeds the best is the one who hakes the best care of his flock. There is no more “luck” about it than there is about boiling water. Put a fire under the kettle and the water will boil, take care of your poultry and It will pay. In selecting *eows for milking, the free, easy step, the' pleasant comfortable expression of countenance and the round, capacious form of body are for more important than the line of descent or family history. Pedigree go • for little unless it carries with it the marks of a good milker. Like animals, plants differ neatly in their habits, and the fooa upon which they subsist. Hie broad-leaved clovers, turnips and mangels abstract from the air a large portion of their growth, while the narrow leaved grains and grasses partake more largely of mineral food, which they draw from the soil. In this fact lies the great, advantage to farmers of rotation of crops. To prevent fence posts from being liftedor thrown out of perpendicular by frost, a correspondent recommends cutting a couple of notches opposite each other near the lower end pf the post, into each of which a flat stone should be fitted, the earth of course being rammed very solid, as well below as above the stones. Whv would it not do exactly as well to form the lower end of the post in the shape of a cross, by halving on a shhort bit of timber.

The sheep has always been a wealth producer. Theflatter end of Job “was blessed, for he had 14,000 sheep,” which would mean to one of us an inof just as many dollars per year, If not twice as many. What an investment for capital, that brings in fifty or sixty per cent, yearly, with almost the certainty that appertains to United States four-per-cents. A flock will easily increase sixty to seventy per cent, yearly, and half that will lie compounded after the second" year. When a horse or cow breaks a leg, it has generally been considered impossible to set it and effect cure, but science .will triumph. The New England Farmer gives an instance: Sometime ago a valuable horse belonging to Charles E. Smith of Stony Brook, had life leg broken at Port Jefferson. The broken limb was set, and the leg was Imbedded in plaster ■of Paris. In two weeks the horse could walk around the stable; in three weeks drove him, a distance of five miles, and three weeks after, the horse was ariven to a road wagon a mile In four toiftqicr.Josiah Hooper. Westehester, Pa., a veteran author, -frmT grower and experimenter, in the American Garden, says: “No sure x remedy ean be suggested to prevent the blight in the pear nor the yellows ip the peach, but the following are not injurious, and are certainly beneficial: Wash the bodies of the trees, as wbU as the lalger branches, with ordinary thin whitewash or soapsuds. Top dress the soil beneath with weak lime, good rich compost, unleached wood ashes, Ac., any refuse decaying vegetable matter, in faet, that will furnish food for your trees. A slight dressing of salt, used sparingly, alsQ answers an excellent purpose, and some cultivators recommend ground bones, and others iron filings. A heavy mulching with muck is beneficial to all yo.upg trees.” Peter Henderson, states in the Gardener’s Monthly that he has discovered that mulching roses in pots to force flowers for the holidays, in January last, with common moss mixed with a good portion of bone dust, say one bone to 80 of moss, has a wonderI effect in bringing forth early roses. In two weeks after the mulch was first applied a change was clearly to be seen, and by the end of May the plants had attained from four to six feet in height, “and though they bad bloomed protosely during a period of nearly six months, were in the most perfect health and vigor.” All other plants on which the mulch had been tried showed marked benefit.

Do sheep owners realize the loss occasioned every year in the condition of their flocks by the abounding sheep ticks ? It is rare to see a flock that to not greviously annoyed by these pests, and the sheep are constantly nibbling in their fleeces to allay the irritation caused by them. I have known lambs to be so pestered with ticks, after the sheep have been sheared and the ticks deprived of shelter have left them and gathered upon the lambs, that they nave died fn consequence. And yet there to an effective remedy, viz: dipping the lambs early in the season or both sheep and lamb later. The moss effective dip is an infusion of tobacco and sulphur. The late Mr. Grant, the large sheep owner of Ellis Co.. Kansas, once told me that the produce to wool was increased 20 per cent, by two dippings in the year, one immediately after shearing and one in the fail. The sheep and lambs feed aud thrive so much better from the ease given them as to make this difference. From my own experience I am sure he did not overate the*benefit and profit.